UN talks falter as war rages

A Syrian military offensive threatened critical rebel supply lines into the northern city of Aleppo yesterday and Damascus echoed its opponents in contradicting a UN envoy's assertion peace talks had begun.

UN envoy Staffan De Mistura announced the formal start on Monday of the first attempt in two years to negotiate an end to a war that has killed 250,000 people, caused a refugee crisis in the region and Europe and empowered Islamic State militants.

But both opposition and government representatives have since said the talks have not in fact begun and fighting on the ground raged on without constraint.

A rebel commander told Reuters he was deploying reinforcements including US-made anti-tank missiles to the Aleppo frontline for what he described as a "decisive battle".

The main Syrian opposition council said after meeting De Mistura on Monday it had not and would not negotiate unless the government stopped bombarding civilian areas, lifted blockades and released detainees. It said yesterday that it will not attend a planned afternoon meeting with the UN special envoy, adding further doubts about the prospects for peace talks in Switzerland.

The head of the Syrian government delegation also denied talks had started after discussions with De Mistura yesterday.

The refugee crisis and spread of the jihadist Islamic State through large areas of Syria, and from there to Iraq, has injected a new urgency to resolve the five-year-old Syria war.

But the chances of success, always very slim, appear to be receding ever more as the government, supported by Russian air strikes, advances against rebels, some of them U.S.-backed, in several parts of western Syria where the country's main cities are located. All previous diplomatic efforts have failed to stop the war.